1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operation management system for a moving body such as a vehicle and an operation management terminal or a mobile terminal used in a moving body.
Although the present invention is directed toward moving vehicles on a highway, the present invention can easily be applied to ships and aircrafts, or to terminals which may be carried by a person.
2. Description of the Related Arts
There is a demand for highly efficient management operation of moving vehicles, and for avoidance of any labor/management problems. For the existing operation management of moving vehicles, daily reports of operation, for example, have been presented. For example, in an existing method, when a vehicle, such as a taxi cab, picks up a passenger, a driver of the vehicle enters the pickup section into a daily report with its charge. After the driver returns to the office, the driver presents the daily report. Alternatively, in the case of picking up or delivering goods, a driver (or a crew) enters the delivery point and arriving time into the daily report each time the driver reaches the delivery point.
Moreover, in order to check the distance the vehicle has traveled, a tachometer is generally installed into a vehicle. After the vehicle has returned to the office, the contents of the daily report are collated with the record of the tachometer to verify whether the contents of the daily report are correct.
In another method, a mobile terminal is installed in every vehicle and the operating conditions of each vehicle is input into its corresponding terminal. FIGS. 34A and 34B are diagrams illustrating a mobile terminal for realizing existing vehicle operation management. As shown in FIG. 34A, an existing mobile terminal 1000 is provided with various kinds of work keys in a keyboard 1010 for information input. Each key is given a function relating to the type of work being performed by the employee. The types of the work can be input by depressing keys. The types of work include beginning work, ending work, departure from office, loading or unloading goods, waiting, traveling an ordinary road, traveling through an expressway (toll road), checking vehicle, washing vehicle, etc. Moreover, the mobile terminal is also provided with a key to input a toll for traveling, for example, on a toll road.
As shown in FIG. 34B, a driver inserts a card 1030 into a card reader/writer 1040. When the driver places the key in the ignition and/or the engine is rotated, a sensor input unit 1050 receives a signal indicating that the driver has started the vehicle. The main controller 1060 controls the card reader and sensor input unit. The main controller has access to RAM 1070 and ROM 1080. The main controller 1060 receives input from the driver by way of the keyboard 1010, which is controlled by the keyboard controller 1015. The main controller displays information to the driver by way of the display controller 1090 and display 1020. The main controller 1060 also has access to a bar code reader controller 1100 and a bar code reader 1110.
In the case of inputting information into a mobile terminal, a driver inputs a type of work, by operating the appropriate key of the mobile terminal corresponding to the work. For example, when a driver leaves the office to work, the driver depresses the "Departure" key. When a driver starts loading or unloading goods at the loading or unloading point, the driver depresses the "Loading/Unloading" key. As explained above, each time when an employee performs work, a driver operates the mobile terminal to input the information indicating the type of work performed.
However, since the procedures are very complicated even in the method in which types of work and time are entered into the daily report or in the method in which the types of work are input using keys provided on the mobile terminal 1000, the driver often forgets to input data to the daily report or to the mobile terminal 1000 and it is very difficult to eliminate this problem.
Moreover, since each type of work performed requires entry of data to the daily report or key operation of the mobile terminal 1000, when a person who is required to enter data is a driver, the driver must do other work in addition to the driving. As a result, the driver has an additional and complicated burden.
Furthermore, it is also probable that a worker makes false entry or key-operation at the time of inputting the type of work performed and it will result in a problem for labor management. In an example of entering the types of work performed into the daily report, basically, there is no way of verifying whether the information entered into a daily report is correct. It is possible, to a certain extent, to check the correspondence between the distance traveled by the vehicle and the daily report by referencing both the tachometer and written contents of the daily report. However, this is not a perfect method. The direction, in which a vehicle travels, cannot be read from the tachometer, and it is impossible to check the actual route taken by the driver of the vehicle.
In addition, even if the types of work performed by the driver are input by the key operations from a mobile terminal, it is probable that a worker will not input the data when the driver must execute the input operation or a worker will input false data by the key operations when the driver should not execute the key operations. Therefore, the accurate collection of work information based on the information input from the mobile terminal 1000 is disabled.
Further, since the routes of the vehicles are not recorded in the methods of the related art, it is very difficult to generate an effective and economical operation plan, including determination of future routes and sequence from the operating conditions in the past.